My Mind Controls Everything But Not Heart

Asked by raju on 2020-01-1 with 1 answer:

I loved a girl in high school but couldn’t tell her about my feelings because of a commitment issue. I gave priority to my career rather than a girl whom I loved. I got admission in a reputed college away from my city. I wanted to do research.BUT In 2nd year of engineering(Mechanical engineering), I got to know that I’m color blind so I can’t get a job in a research organization. In the end, I lost my love and my dream both. Now I do a job but not satisfied. I still feel guilty about my decision. I lost my trust because of my previous decision. now loneliness is my life for the last 4 years.I don’t want to go out. I don’t want to talk to anyone. I don’t want a relationship with a girl because I don’t trust myself anymore. I want to be single for my whole life. I want to feel miserable for my whole life as a punishment. now I don’t have emotion and attachment with anything. my thinking is totally based on logic, fact, and data. I control my thought that what should i think or whatnot. sometimes I still feel that I can do better in professional life but not in personal life. I know it’s not right but still, I m helpless.

Your facts and data are not as clear-cut as you might imagine. Imagine two people staring at the symbol “6” but looking at it from the opposite points of view. The symbol doesn’t change and yet the person at the opposite end would say she sees a “9” while the other says they see a “6.” The “fact is there is only one symbol, but the different perspectives would yield completely different results. The same is true in almost every situation — and it is true in your situation.

The commitment issue was real enough for you not to tell this girl about your feelings. You honored your feeling and there is something important about that. You have no idea how she would have responded and not telling her your feelings may have saved her from the embarrassment of not having the feelings, and it may have saved you from feeling rejected. What is important here to recognize is that you are only imagining that your admission of feelings would have been reciprocated when nothing you’ve suggested about her says she’d have returned your affections.

You then made a good decision to go to a reputable university where it wasn’t known that you’d be color blind. Many talented people made adjustments to their careers when they were initially thwarted. Thomas Edison developed the phonograph record even though he was partially deaf, and Beethoven composed his symphonies although he was completely deaf. Helen Keller was the first deaf-blind person to earn a bachelor of arts degree, and her autobiography about her teacher Ann Sullivan was turned into a major motion picture, The Miracle Worker. The list of people making great contributions in spite of their inability in one area is endless. Einstein and Hawkins are two examples from the world of physics. People who might be considered failures at one point found dramatic ways to contribute in spite of their limitations. You didn’t lose a love so much as you didn’t find out if love was possible. You were thwarted at one dream, but that doesn’t mean you are a failure.: It means you need a different dream.

You are standing at one end of the symbol and are saying all you can see is a “6.” If you stay with that perspective you will not see it as anything else. Consider your own words: “I want to be single for my whole life…” This tells us that you want to stare at your situation and continue seeing it from this perspective. Further, you state” “I want to feel miserable for my whole life as a punishment.” Believing you need to be punished for who you are is the best way to ensure you will be.

It isn’t what happens to us that matters as much as how we react to what happens. This is something YOU are in control over and a decision not to change is a decision to remain the same. You are choosing to look at your life wishing it added up to more than a “6.” The way to see it as something more is to change how you look at it. By doing this you can make a 6 transform easily into something considerably more valuable.

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Daniel J. Tomasulo, PhD, TEP, MFA, MAPP

Dan Tomasulo Ph.D., TEP, MFA, MAPP teaches Positive Psychology in the graduate program of Counseling and Clinical Psychology at Columbia University, Teachers College and works with Martin Seligman, the Father of Positive Psychology in the Masters of Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) program at the University of Pennsylvania. He is Director of the New York Certification in Positive Psychology for the Open Center in New York City and on faculty at New Jersey City University. Sharecare has honored him as one of the top 10 online influencers on the topic of depression. For more information go to: http://www.dare2behappy.com/. He also writes for Psych Central's Ask the Therapist column and the Proof Positive blog.